Home
by WolfieJimi
Summary: A slip of the tongue, or three, leads Aziraphale to face up to something that's been staring him in the face ever since the Apocalypse didn't happen. In which a storm rages, a plant is gifted, Thai takeout is eaten, and we finally find out who the song "You're So Vain" was written about (turns out it wasn't Mick Jagger or Cat Stevens after all) Very domestic, very mudane, very ri


It had been eight weeks since the Apocalypse-that-wasn't. The Not-Quite-End-Times. Doomsdidn't. Nah-mageddon. The fallout from this failed destruction of the world, with its kraken and tornadoes and disappearing nuclear reactors, had been surprisingly lacklustre. People seemed to have forgotten the whole thing entirely. Whether this was through Adam's intervention or through people just being people and getting on with more important things like the Stock Market, and Politics, and Getting The Kids To School On Time was hard to say. But, either way and for better or for worse, the world had moved on as though nothing had happened at all, and everything was back to precisely the way it had been before.

Almost everything, anyway.

Summer had faded, and Autumn was coming along nicely, in just the way an English autumn should. It had crisp winds that rosied cheeks, mornings that hinted at eventual frosts, evenings that began shortly after lunch, and a steady supply of half-hearted English drizzle.

Although, in its defense, the _drizzle _presently battering London was anything but half-hearted. Rain didn't so much fall as hurl itself vaguely downwards with a psychotic vengeance, as if it had a personal vendetta against every living creature with the audacity to be out of doors. Alongside it the wind not only howled but bit, hissed, and swore at the world in general. There were no ominous thunder rolls or cracks of lightning, presumably because those atmospheric phenomena were too intimidated by the storm to risk going anywhere near it.

But whilst the rain and the wind staged their violent revolution outside on the streets, inside of _A.Z. Fell & Co. Antiquarian and Unusual Books _, an aura of worn-in comfort and warm cosiness continued to reign unchallenged. Scattered and mismatched lamps glowed softly about the place, piles of books and obscure and antique _objets d'art _cast haphazard shadows here and there, and the silence hugging the place like a favourite old jumper was only enhanced by the long-roll drumming of the rain on the windows outside.

It was probably about twenty-five minutes past seven in the bookshop, and presumably elsewhere, too. Aziraphale could never be quite sure, as none of the clocks in his shop were ever in sync with one another. He tended to go by the time on the large grandfather clock that stood across from his cosy little reading nook, not because there was any reason to believe it was any more accurate than the other clocks, but simply because the Angel rather liked it and had a terrible tendency to play favourites.

Aziraphale himself was currently curled up on the sofa. He had a blanket wrapped around him, a mug of cocoa on the end-table, a book in his hands, and he was perfectly content.

Well, almost, perfectly content.

The bell above the shop door jingled and a bitter draught whirled in through the open door. A pile of papers cascaded to the floor, shoved out of their place on Aziraphale's desk by the bitter and indecorously combative wind. Rain streamed in almost horizontally, fat droplets pooling into puddles on the old hardwood floors.

"Ugh! Bloody blasted _weather _," an irritated voice cursed venomously as its owner struggled to close the door.

Aziraphale smiled.

Further noises emanating from the front of the shop suggested that some kind of wrestling match was underway. These were abruptly halted with a loud slam as the door was pinned, shoulders to the mat, one-two-three, and the lock and chain were jammed into place. The bookshop took a calming breath and resettled itself.

"Angel, I'm home."

"Glad to hear it!" Aziraphale called back to Crowley. "I was beginning to worry. It's blowing up a frightful gale out there, you know. "

Crowley's sodden and bedraggled head poked around the corner, looking for all the world like a rat that had gone for a swim in a washing machine.

"Oh, it is, is it? Bad weather, is there? I hadn't noticed. Thank you _so much _for informing me before I did something stupid like go out in it."

The drowned-rat disappeared with a scowl back into the maze of the shop.

"I did tell you to take your raincoat. You left it on the stand." Aziraphale replied with a half-hearted call. He wasn't quite sure where Crowley had darted off to, or if he was even listening.

"'_ i DiD tEll yOU tO TaKE yOuR CoAt', _" Crowley echoed back petulantly from parts unknown. "Not like I left the bloody thing here on purpose, angel! Not like I just thought ' _You know what I feel in the mood for? Pneumonia. Nice little bout of pneumonia, that would really do the trick right about now _. _I think I'll leave my coat at home and go for a stroll in a bloody hurricane' _. Christ-on-a-bike..."

"No need to be like that."

Crowley walked back into Aziraphale's line of vision, only this time he was carrying a large, oxidised silver plant pot housing a sprawling and complicated-looking plant.

"You're making me have second thoughts about giving you this, with idiotic comments like that, angel," the Demon said with a grin.

"Crowley! What's that!?"

"An elephant," Crowley snipped. "What do you think it is? 'S'for you. Thought it'd, you know, brighten the place up a bit. Oxygenate it a bit, for one."

"For _me _?" Aziraphale chirped.

"Yeah. Thought you'd like it. So." Crowley sniffed; a gesture only one step below polishing his nails on his lapel, on the Smug Bastard Scale.

Aziraphale didn't know what to say. On the one hand he was unreservedly overjoyed at Crowley bringing him a plant as a gift, with the emphases being on _Crowley _and _gift. _On the other hand, he was utterly dismayed and mildly wracked with anxiety at Crowley bringing him a plant as a gift. With the emphasis on _plant _.

Aziraphale was not very good with plants. He killed a _cactus _, once. He hadn't even over-watered it. Nothing so mundane as that. Honestly he had no idea _what _had killed it. As far as he could tell, he hadn't done anything wrong. The thing had just died. As if it had just given up on life. Aziraphale made plants suicidal.

Crowley carefully placed the potted plant on the floor at the Angel's feet.

"Don't worry about killing it," Crowley said, as if having read his mind, "this little bastard has been picked out with you specifically in mind. _Epipremnum aureum. _Hard bugger to get rid of, even harder to kill. And I'll be around to keep an eye on it. _To keep it in line _." This last sentence was hissed threateningly, and directed squarely at the poor plant.

This, of course, had the immediate impact of entirely endearing the green little thing to Aziraphale.

"Oh, don't talk to him like that, Crowley." The Angel reached over and gently stroked one of the dark green and yellow-flecked leaves. It was veined with tiny silver threads, and was, in its own way, quite beautiful. "You are a lovely little thing, aren't you?" Aziraphale murmured softly to the plant, tracing his finger over a little heart-shaped leaf.

Crowley shivered.

"Don't be _nice _to it," he said, leaning over the Angel's shoulder to get up close and personal with the quivering plant. "You have to threaten them. Terrorize them into submission. It's the only thing that works. Treat 'em mean."

As he spoke, a droplet of water dripped from his hair and skipped straight down the back of Aziraphale's neck.

The Angel yelped and Crowley leapt. This action on Crowley's part had much the same effect as when a shaggy dog, having just jumped out of a pond into which he had leapt in the pursuit of a duck, and who is now standing surrounded by his wide-eyed family members, decides that the best course of action from here is to have a good old shake. Aziraphale and the surrounding area were spattered with cold and slightly Wet-Crowley-Scented rainwater.

Aziraphale, attention damply wrested from the pot plant, finally noticed the extent of the state that Crowley was in. He really was sopping wet from head to foot.

"Oh, my dear, _look _at you! You'll catch your death!" Aziraphale cried.

He snapped his fingers and Crowley was insta-dried. This had the unfortunate side effect of leaving the Demon's usually perfect hair somewhat _less _than perfect. It looked rather like a red dandelion clock. A particularly fluffy one at that too, as Crowley was in the process of growing his hair out again and it was rather shaggy even when styled to his own high standards. Aziraphale was never very good with hair.

Crowley groaned dramatically. Although groaned isn't really the most precise descriptor for the "_ arghrrghaahhgbnnnugghh _" sound he made, but it comes close enough in sentiment.

"Aziraphale! We agreed, no miracles!" He paused. "Or, at least, no miracles that aren't emergency miracles." He glared at the Angel. "We're supposed to be laying low. Not attracting any attention from any of-" he waved his arms upward and then downward, "_ them _. S'like using a credit card instead of cash. Traceable. Trackable. Whatever. They can see what we're doing if we go about doing miracles all the time. Not worth the risk, angel."

Aziraphale bristled.

"Yes, I do know, Crowley. If you'll recall it was actually my suggestion in the first place."

"Then you should know better! Stick. To. It!"

"I know!" The Angel snapped, then deflated. "I know. You're right. You just looked so cold, I did it without thinking. Frivolous miracling seems to have always been a bad habit of mine," he said, sadly.

It was a very unfair move on Aziraphale's part, made even more so by its utter sincerity. Crowley huffed. Although "huffed" isn't really the most precise descriptor for the guilt-laden, heart-swelling, sinking feeling currently puncturing his chest cavity, but it comes close enough in action.

"Ah… Ugh. Don't worry about it. I'm sure it's fine. Barely even a miracle anyway, really. Would've dried off eventually, not like you did anything, you know, like, _major _. Just made it happen a bit faster. Probably didn't even register Up There. Or Down There, I suppose. Who knows who's trying to keep tabs now. Everyone, no one..."

Crowley ran his fingers through his hair, awkwardly. Then he froze.

"What. The hell. Have you done. To my hair."

"Hm?" Aziraphale asked, all innocence.

"Why is it _fluffy!?"_

Crowley bent over to examine his reflection in a glass-fronted cabinet.

"Argh! Look at it! nngssffjjddgnnntttt! I look like _The Lion King _!"

Aziraphale couldn't help giggling at this. He did look rather leonine with that red mane of his all puffed out around his head like a fluffy halo. Crowley looked up from his preening to shoot an evil eye at the laughing Angel.

"And you can stop laughing, too! It's not funny. This is my _hair _. My hair's my best bit. Look what you've done to it!"

"Why does it matter, it's only me here, no one else will see it. And my hair isn't exactly, what's the phrase you use? On fleek?"

Crowley spluttered.

"Please never say that again," he said with intent. "And there's nothing wrong with_ your _hair." He turned back to his reflection.

"My hair is fluffy," the Angel said.

"Yeah, but fluffy suits you. You're a fluffy kind of a person. Like a teddy bear with a machete or something. I'm _not _fluffy. I'm _cool," _the Demon whined, pathetically.

Pulling a hairband off of his wrist, Crowley wrestled the fluffball on his head into a poofy half pony-tail. It stuck straight out from the back of his head like the tail of a perturbed cat, whilst the rest of his hair, too short to be wrangled, flailed in all directions, no doubt in the midst of an existential crisis. He grimaced. It was a bit better. Sort of.

"I'm not going to be able to fix this without washing it," he sighed. "I hope you're happy, angel."

Aziraphale grinned at him. "I rather am, actually."

It always infuriated Crowley how the Angel could manage to look so uncouth and mischievous _and _so virtuously wholesome at the exact same time. If by infuriated, that is, we actually mean completely charmed.

Crowley shook his head, exasperated. "I'm gonna go put the rest of the shopping away," he said. He turned to leave, pausing only to add, "Oh yeah, I stopped by that Thai place you like on the way home. Takeaway alright for tea?"

Aziraphale perked up. "Oh I should say so!"

"I'll fetch some plates. Know you don't like eating out of the box like a _normal _person…" He wandered off, still muttering to himself about the relative benefits of _not _decanting noodles onto dishes and of eating pizza with your hands instead of with a knife and fork like a psychopath, and how certain Angels were take-out barbarians, &etc. &etc.

Aziraphale snuggled himself back down on the sofa and looked lovingly at his new plant. He listened to Crowley's idiosyncratic footsteps as they tripped up the stairs to the small and not-very-used kitchen above the shop, and he smiled. That was a sound he never would have expected to become accustomed to, and yet here they were. Aziraphale basked in contentment.

But in spite of this utter contentment, something was niggling at him. He had that very specific prickling feeling on the back of his neck which usually indicated that his brain had noticed some important information that had yet to filter through to his higher consciousness. It wasn't paired with the anxiety common in the pre-NoPocalypse days, but it was definitely _something _. It felt like when you can't remember a word, and you aren't actually certain the word exists, but you are _pretty _sure it probably does exist, if you could only remember it. The realisation was on the tip of his tongue.

"Angel," Crowley called down from the kitchen, "D'you want the Pad Thai or the Massaman? I got both but I'm not fussed which I have. Your pick."

Aziraphale thought for a moment, then called back, "Can we have half each?"

In the kitchen, Crowley laughed to himself.

"Whatever."

It was rather nice to have a Demon about the place, Aziraphale thought. Made it feel so much more home-y.

And that's when the realisation filtered through.

_Angel, I'm home_

_I think I'll leave my coat at home_

_stopped by that Thai place you like on the way home_

Three times this evening Crowley had referred to the bookshop, _Aziraphale _'s bookshop, as _home _.

This wouldn't have been particularly remarkable but for the fact that Crowley didn't actually live there. He did stay there quite often, but he didn't _live _there.

Aziraphale hesitated.

_Did _he?

Crowley had stayed there most nights, since Nahmaggeddon. Nearly every night, in fact. Either on the sofa down in the back room, or sometimes on the one upstairs, although that one was nowhere near as comfortable. Come to think of it, he only slept upstairs in the flat on the rare occasions that Aziraphale did too, instead of falling asleep in his armchair, or at his desk, or just not sleeping at all. One night, when Aziraphale had stayed out later than he'd expected at an antique's auction, he'd come home to find him curled up on one of the rugs near the shop door next to a fan heater, which had been a bit weird, but it was Crowley so Aziraphale had just thrown a blanket over him and left him to it.

Now he was thinking about it, Aziraphale realised that Crowley spent most of _all _of his time here. They both did. They had breakfast together pretty much every day. In fact they ate all of their meals together. Sometimes they even cooked together, although neither of them were any good at it and generally whatever they made ended up in the bin and they would go out instead.

On weekends, or days Aziraphale arbitrarily decided not to open the shop and they didn't fancy going out anywhere, they'd sit together in the cosy little back room and Aziraphale would read and Crowley would play noisy video games on his laptop. Or on other days Aziraphale would sort through his collections, and Crowley would hover around him picking up random books and asking questions like "_ what's this one about then?" _and _"have you read all of these?" _and " _I met him! Weird bloke. Are his books any good?" _

On several occasions Aziraphale had walked into the main area of the shop to find Crowley _serving _a _customer _. He always promised that he only let them buy books Aziraphale wanted to get shot of, like that crate of _Game of Thrones _books a misguided fellow book-dealer had sent him in a doomed attempt at networking, so Aziraphale didn't mind. If Crowley got rid of the pesky things, it meant he didn't have to. Customers, that is.

But it wasn't as though Crowley never went back to his flat. He went there quite frequently. Aziraphale didn't have a washing machine, for one (the majority of his clothes were dry-clean only). And he didn't have satellite television and Crowley liked to watch the _WWE _, and whatever that was you could apparently only watch the weekly episodes on Sky Sports. Aziraphale went to the flat with him sometimes too, and they'd watch re-runs of _The Great British Bake Off _together whilst Crowley's clothes were in the dryer.

And, of course, Crowley had his plants to take care of. Although… a few of those _had _shown up in the shop, of late. Crowley said that they'd been failing to live up to standard, but because those specific breeds ( _do plants have breeds, _Aziraphale wondered? _Or is it species? Genres…? _) were rare, he wanted to try moving them to the less glaring light that the bookshop's "grimy old windows" provided, to see if that shook them out of their stupor. But most of his plants _were _still at the flat. And most of Crowley's clothes, too. Not all of them. But most of them. At least half of them, anyway. And he still had a toothbrush at the flat. Granted, it was considerably less used than the one which had appeared in Aziraphale's bathroom several weeks ago, but still.

Crowley clearly hadn't moved into the bookshop. At least, not entirely.

But the fact still remained that he _had _called the bookshop _home_. Crowley thought of this place, this place that Aziraphale loved so dearly, as _his_ _home too_

Aziraphale was taken aback by just how pleased this revelation made him. More than pleased. Happy. Exuberant. Ebullient. A touch euphoric. He realised that he _wanted _Crowley to feel at home here. He wanted Crowley to _be _at home here. He didn't want him to ever be at home anywhere else, unless he, Aziraphale, went with him.

Crowley walked in carrying two plates of Thai food in one hand, and two empty glasses in the other. He had a bottle of wine tucked precariously under his arm.

Aziraphale jumped up and took the glasses and the bottle from him, their hands brushing as he did. He set them down. The glasses, that is, not their hands.

"What?" Crowley said suspiciously as he put the plates on the coffee table.

"What _what _?" Aziraphale echoed.

"Why are you smiling at me?"

"Is there a law against me smiling at you? Am I no longer allowed to smile at you?"

Crowley frowned. "Not like _that _. Why are you smiling at me like _that _?" He touched his hair self-consciously. "What is it?"

"Nothing! You're being paranoid, my dear."

Aziraphale poured their wine and placed the glasses next to each other. Crowley sprawled onto the far end of the sofa, watching the Angel uncertainly. Aziraphale dropped down onto the cushion next to Crowley and picked up his plate.

"Ahhh," he sighed happily. "Scrumptious."

Crowley narrowed his eyes. "Why are you so happy?" He asked.

"Should I not be happy?" Aziraphale replied, affronted.

"No! ... Wait, no, not no. Yes. No. Urgh, I mean, you can be happy. I want you to be happy. Don't want you to be _un _happy. But _why _are you _so _happy? It's weird."

"I have good food, a lovely new plant, and the company of my dearest friend, what isn't there to be happy about?"

"Nah, nah nah. Don't give me that," Crowley said, turning to fully face the Angel, and tucking one leg under himself. "Because you are _that _kind of happy _all _the time. That's regular happy. That's an every day, _I'm Aziraphale the world's most joie du vivre-ish Angel ever _kind of happy. This is different. You're _smiling _differently. Why? It's my hair, isn't it?"

Aziraphale shook his head despairingly.

"No, Crowley. Not everything in the world revolves around your appearance, you know. You're so _vain _."

"Don't quote Carly Simon at me, angel."

"Carly Si…? - Oh, yes, I remember her! Very talented young lady," Aziraphale replied, changing the subject a tad too enthusiastically. He didn't want to get into the whole _why he was beaming at Crowley _conversation. If he had to talk about bebop instead, so be it. "That _was _how her song went, wasn't it? _You're so vain something something song is about you. _"

"That song actually _was _about me, though. Carly got pissed off that I'd stood her up - for you, I might add. Remember that night, early '71, you had that _little run in _with the police in New York that I had to come and sort out?"

"Oh yes! We went up to Nova Scotia afterwards, didn't we?"

"Hah, yeah. We did. That was a weird week. But anyway, _as I was saying _, Miss Simon didn't appreciate me cancelling our dinner plans, and wrote that little ditty about me in retaliation. Bit of a psycho really, we weren't even particularly well acquainted. I just wanted free tickets to the James Taylor concert and she was dating him. She sent me a signed copy of that vinyl. Just wrote _"Bastard. Love Carly x" _on it. That song's libellous if you ask me. As if I'd ever wear _apricot _."

Aziraphale laughed at that, and Crowley had to wrench his stare away from the dimples in the Angel's cheeks and the way his eyes glittered. Crowley loved seeing Aziraphale laugh. There was something so unfettered about it. So unabashed. So untempered. He was just so _cute _. Infuriating, of course, but infuriating _and _cute. Which was, in itself, infuriating. ...And cute.

Then Crowley frowned and remembered that he was supposed to be irritated at Aziraphale's prevarication, not enabling it. Something was… not _wrong _with the Angel, but something was… something-ish. He could feel it. And Crowley needed to know what it was or it would drive him crazy.

Aziraphale meanwhile returned to his food as though this particular conversation had been concluded.

"What's the deal, then?" Crowley asked, quietly.

"With what?" Aziraphale replied, all faux-innocence.

"Angel…" Crowley could have elaborated, but he didn't need to, and he knew it.

Aziraphale hesitated for a second, contemplating further equivocation, but relented. For all his bluster, Crowley was really quite a sensitive plant underneath it all, and deceptively empathetic. Aziraphale could brush off the Demon's questions and concerns til Kingdom Come (again), but Crowley would still know when there was something on the Angel's mind. Oh well, honesty is the best policy, supposedly, Aziraphale thought.

And so Aziraphale shifted in his seat to face Crowley. He looked carefully at him for a few moments before speaking. This was… tricky. He didn't want to rush in - he was an Angel not a fool, after all. And he didn't want to make things awkward or uncomfortable if he had misinterpreted Crowley's words.

But, he suddenly realised, he _did _want him to know that the Bookshop really was _his,_ _Crowley's_, home just as much as it was Aziraphale's, if he wanted it to be. And that _Aziraphale_ wanted it to be. Armageddidn't had taught him many things, but chief among them were the importance of not running away and of not taking anything for granted. Especially when it came to Crowley. Even if it meant making a fool out of himself. Or worse, scaring Crowley away. He would have to tread lightly.

"Where would you say your home is?" Aziraphale asked.

Crowley blanched. He was wrongfooted. Caught off guard. Of all the things he had expected the Angel to come out with right then, this question was not among them.

"Uh. What?"

"Where is your _home _?" Aziraphale repeated.

"Well I- I mean. I dunno. I guess... The flat?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"The truth."

Crowley growled and rolled his eyes.

Because if he were honest with himself, Crowley _had _been expecting this. Not at this particular juncture, granted, but as a general sense of ominous foreboding. He knew the Angel valued his independence, valued his time alone, valued his own space. And Crowley knew that he had been very much infringing on that space for the past weeks.

After losing Aziraphale, and after everything they'd been through, Crowley just couldn't bear being on his own for very long. Couldn't bear being without the Angel. It _was _ridiculous, he knew that. And he knew it couldn't carry on forever. Things would have to go back to normal eventually. He couldn't just keep crashing on Aziraphale's sofa forever. But he had, foolishly, been nurturing a tiny spark of hope deep within himself that maybe, just _maybe _, things wouldn't have to go back to normal. That maybe he _could _stay here with the Angel. With _his _angel, for whatever that meant.

It was a stupid hope, and Crowley felt he deserved any and all heartbreak he received as a result of carrying it instead of crushing it. Of course Aziraphale wanted him to leave, to back-off, to stop with the, the, the, the plants and the Thai food and the toothbrush and the _hovering _. Crowley only wished that Aziraphale had said it to him _straight _, instead of being all… _Aziraphale _-ish about it.

"It was the plant, wasn't it?" Crowley began babbling. "I knew the plant was too much. Devil's Ivy, really? Promising to "_ be around to keep an eye on it _"? Oh, yeah, subtle. Slick. Mister Slick, Anthony J. Crowley, at your service. Ugh. Or was it the sleeping on the floor? I know that was a bit- but I wanted to make sure- and it was cold and -"

It was Aziraphale's turn to be wrongfooted.

"What?" The Angel said, shaking his head.

"What _what _?" Crowley echoed. He stared at nothing and then shuddered. "Ugh, _de ja vu _."

"My dear boy, I'm afraid you have rather lost me."

"I know, I'm- Argh. I know I have. I knew I would. Obviously. Obviously… Look, can I at least, nngghhfffnngg, stay until this storm dies down? I don't really want to go back out in it… I can, I don't know, I'll go upstairs or something. Would that be too awkward? Yeah, no, yeah it would. I should - I'll just go. Got my coat now, so. Car's outside. I'll just go. Yeah. Sorry. Uh. Yeah. 'Kay."

Crowley, nodding distractedly, stood up to leave. He knocked over his wine glass in the process.

"Crowley, please, I honestly have no idea what you are talking about. Just _sit dow _n for a moment, please."

Aziraphale was using his Bossy Voice.

Crowley sat back down.

"Now," Aziraphale said, "would you please explain _calmly _what precisely you are going on about?"

Crowley groaned and tossed his head, like he could shake Aziraphale's words out of it.

"Look, ange- Aziraphale, do we really have to do this? You want me to leave, so I'm leaving. Do we have to drag it out? I won't … harbour ill-feelings towards you, or whatever. It's fine. I get it. 'S'fine. Not a problem. Fine."

It was clearly not fine.

"My dear, where on earth did you get the idea that I wanted you to _leave _? That's the most absurd thing I've heard all day, and I had a customer in here earlier who tried to convince me to sell my First Edition of _Three Men In A Boat _on the basis that 'his wife really likes canoeing'. Why would you ever think I wouldn't want you here?"

Crowley didn't say anything. He didn't even move. It was as though his brain had run into an error message and crashed. He was waiting for it to restart in Safe Mode.

"Crowley, I don't want you to_ leave _," Aziraphale said. "Quite the opposite… That's why I..." The Angel sighed and opened his hands, flexing his fingers as he stared at them in his lap. Cards on the table time.

"You called the Bookshop _'home' _," he said simply.

"Whuh?" Crowley replied, eloquent as ever.

"Earlier. Three times. I don't think you even meant to, it just … came out. You said '_ Angel, I'm home' _, and then you said you'd left your coat at home, and then that you collected food on the way home, but you weren't talking about your flat, you were talking about _here _, and I, well, I suppose I just wanted to know if you really meant it."

Crowley was far too cool to blush, but if he weren't, he would have.

"Because the thing is, I was rather hoping you did mean it," the Angel added, dropping his gaze to the floor and fiddling with one of Anthony's leaves. He'd decided to call the plant, the Devil's Ivy, Anthony. That way even if the real one left after this display of flagrant emotionalism, Aziraphale would still have Planthony to keep him company. As long as he didn't kill the poor bugger.

"It's been- having you around, I mean, it's, well… It's been _nice _. I was considering asking you whether you would consider- Not that you have to, or anything, it was just an idea, but - What I mean to say is that I do have a spare room upstairs, it's full of books but we could move them, if you - not that you should feel pressured or- but it can't be good for your back, sleeping on the sofa all the time, and I should hate it if you, if you… I rather like having you around. And I'd quite like you to, well, _stay_. If you want to."

Crowley, who had been silent throughout this havering, now emitted a high-pitched squeak. He was sitting perfectly and rigidly still aside from the constant jiggling of his leg. His knee kept knocking against the table. Aziraphale watched as the toppled wine glass jerkily rolled ever closer to the edge, propelled by the movement.

Crowley still hadn't said anything. Just sat, staring, occasionally opening his mouth and then closing it again and tilting his head in line with whatever internal dialogue was going on inside it.

The glass tumbled off of the table. As Aziraphale reached out to catch it, Crowley darted his hand out too. The result of this was that they both missed the glass entirely (which fortunately landed on the rug and rolled under the sofa unharmed), and instead each ended up clasping one another's hands.

This does make the action sound rather more poetic and soft than it actually was. In reality this mix-up entailed Crowley painfully crushing Aziraphale's middle and index fingers and bending the other two at a wholly uncomfortable angle, whilst Aziraphale's spiky angel-wings pinky ring nicked the inside of Crowley's wrist and left one of those tiny little scratches that stung far more than they had any right to.

But Aziraphale did run his thumb gently over Crowley's knuckles before realising what he was doing, and Crowley did hold onto the Angel's hand rather longer than was strictly necessary. So perhaps it was a little poetic and soft, after all.

Crowley nodded, an infinitesimal gesture. The beat of a butterfly's wing.

"Yeah," he said. "I do."

Aziraphale stopped holding his breath.

"Oh, marvellous. Wonderful. I am glad to hear it." The Angel beamed, eyes glittering, at the Demon, _his_ Demon. His Demon in _their_ home. It really was too wonderful for words.

Then he picked up his plate and resumed eating.

Crowley stared at him, and laughed under his breath, or breathed a sigh of relief, or maybe both, and reached under the sofa to pick up the fallen glass.

"Why _did _we go to Nova Scotia in 1971, angel?"

"I believe it had something to do with a solar eclipse, or some other astronomical phenomenon or suchlike that you were keen to see.

"Oh _yeah!"_

_"And then _of course we ended up in that terrible tangle with that _bear..."_

Azirapahle laughed, and Crowley watched him tell the story, their story, and they were both perfectly content. Exuberant. Ebullient. Just a touch euphoric.

Everything was back to precisely the way it had been before.

Well. Almost.


End file.
